Re: Cocktail Nazis

A bitter hot bottom shelfer will benefit from the additional sugary sweetness of coke and they play ver well together. It's an enjoyable drink no doubt.
But will a premium delicious sipper actually benefit by mixing with soda pop? Or does the value of using it as a mixer reside primarily in its cost? Anyone ever done a blind Coke and Bourbon tasting?

Re: Cocktail Nazis

Originally Posted by sailor22

A bitter hot bottom shelfer will benefit from the additional sugary sweetness of coke and they play ver well together. It's an enjoyable drink no doubt.
But will a premium delicious sipper actually benefit by mixing with soda pop? Or does the value of using it as a mixer reside primarily in its cost? Anyone ever done a blind Coke and Bourbon tasting?

Mixing with coke/soda likely does help more than hurt a less noteworthy bourbon. Not sure coke or dark soda does much for a good bourbon, not that I have tried it, although I have developed a liking for ETL with a splash of Sprite! Not a top sipper perhaps but a good quality bourbon that seems to work well.

But in a cocktail where the base spirits really needs to carry the drink like a Sazerac or an Old Fashioned (or something a bit off the reservation like a Rapscallion*) then the better the spirit likely the better the drink for me. Maybe it is mental as much as anything, never tried doing it blind, but I would like to think it is not the case!

Re: Cocktail Nazis

Originally Posted by sailor22

A bitter hot bottom shelfer will benefit from the additional sugary sweetness of coke and they play ver well together. It's an enjoyable drink no doubt.
But will a premium delicious sipper actually benefit by mixing with soda pop? Or does the value of using it as a mixer reside primarily in its cost? Anyone ever done a blind Coke and Bourbon tasting?

Not blind but early on in my bourbon journey I did a head-to-head with what I had on hand, all mixed with Coke Zero: EWB, Woodford, EC12, and JBB. EC12 was the clear winner, hands-down. Tying for a distant second were EWB and Woodford (I found both to be a little too subtle for my taste). Beam was just gritty and not enjoyable. (And I'm no Beam hater).

I guess the point is that if you like the flavor of bourbon and cola, it's worth experimenting. My own 2 cents is that a big, bold bourbon does really well where a more subtle refined one does not, regardless of price category.

I'm editing this to say that I also did head to head with those bourbons neat around the same time and I didn't rank them in the same order as with Coke.

Re: Cocktail Nazis

The coke/soda thing is what I think of as a highball, which is to say tall glass with ice, a measure of whisky, then filled with the mixer and Brisco is correct in that coke will drown out the less forthright Bourbons.

Of course there are many cocktails using Bourbon that don't call for coke/soda as an ingredient.